


Strictly Method

by thingswithwings



Category: Sherlock Holmes - fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Community: kink_bingo, Costumes, Dress Up, M/M, Underage Sex, Uniforms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-26
Updated: 2009-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:49:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When I agreed to share lodgings with you, I didn't realise that I would be sharing with twenty-odd others as well," I said.  "Perhaps you should be paying additional rent."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strictly Method

**Author's Note:**

> This story plays a bit of havoc with the accepted Holmes chronology, basically making [The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton](http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DoyChar.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1) into one of their earliest cases; I think there's some justification for this in the story itself, though, and will happily discuss it if anyone's interested.
> 
> For an explanation of the "underage sex" tag on this story, see the (very spoilery) note at the bottom of the story.

  
"You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?"

Startled, I glanced up from my book to take in the cast of Holmes' features. Though his natural demeanor was not precisely jovial, it was not unheard of for him to tell a small joke. At the time, however, we had only been sharing rooms for a little over a year, and I could seldom discern when he was being serious and when ironical. There was a decided twinkle to his eye.

"No," I replied slowly. "No, indeed."

He had removed the makeup and the goatee beard, but he was still wearing the clothes of the rugged young workman he had been impersonating for the last week or so. In the full costume he had cut somewhat of a dashing figure, but without the little touches to complete the effect, it did not sit well upon him. There was an unsettling contrast between elements of his usual appearance – smooth-shaven face, neat dark hair, clean careful hands – and the rough and ready tradesman's attire that he was still wearing. I wished for him to retire to his room, or at least change into his dressing-gown.

Holmes smiled in the brief, mocking way that he had. "Then you will be interested to hear that I'm engaged."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Finally I managed to speak.

"Congratul – " I began.

Holmes interrupted me. "To Milverton's housemaid."

Grimacing, I closed my book and leaned forward in my chair. Holmes had been pursuing the odious blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton for some time, but he had left me entirely out of his schemes, rebuffing me coldly whenever I inquired as to the function of his daily disguise. Eventually I had ceased asking, tired of listening to his silence or his annoyed remarks about my prurience. Now he seemed ready to talk about it, but the gleam of glee in his eye told me that he was doing so only to enjoy my reaction to this bizarre news.

I did not disappoint him. "Good heavens, Holmes!" I cried, unable to help myself. The cruelty of such a plot struck me immediately.

He waved his hand airily, a gesture completely at odds with the worn, stained sleeve of the cheap jacket he was wearing. "I needed information."

"This is going too far. The girl – "

"The girl is doing no more than manipulating me in order to anger my hated rival, another workman at the house. I assure you that it's all perfectly sordid on all sides, and so hardly criminal." There was his annoyance back again, as if he had not been the one to initiate this conversation and intentionally provoke me into the very reaction that I had provided.

"I don't like it," I insisted. I was at a loss for what else to say; surely as a student of British law, he understood that he could at the very least be brought up for breach of promise. I stared at his dirty white shirt and his unkempt neckerchief, feeling the increasingly familiar sensation of anger and annoyance that struck me whenever Holmes' schemes took such a turn.

Again Holmes waved his hand, dismissing the whole topic. "It is immaterial, Watson, and it is done. Tonight the charade ends."

Charade was the right word for it, undoubtedly, and a most distasteful charade it was at that; but Holmes would hear no more about it, and although we succeeded in preserving the reputation of our client and destroying Milverton's detestable blackmail business, I never did learn what became of the girl who had engaged herself to the dashing young plumber Escott. I thought of her occasionally, a girl in love with a disguise; despite Holmes' assurances, I could never picture her in the role of manipulator.

*

Over the months of our acquaintance, I had grown accustomed to him; I no longer allowed myself to be surprised by his sudden appearances or his equally hasty exits, often in the dead of night, coming from or going to parts of the city I had rarely thought about and never seen. I grew accustomed, also, to his strange habits: it was not unusual for Holmes to rise exceptionally early, or exceptionally late; it was in keeping with his character to strew papers and chemical experiments about our rooms with little regard for my preferences or those of the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson; and it was often the case that Holmes arrived home in a costume not his own, dressed as a swarthy groom, an old bookseller, a Scottish farmer, or, on one or two memorable occasions, a scullery maid.

I was not insensible to the fact that Holmes relished these opportunities for amateur theatrics, for they afforded him his usual pleasure of getting the better of me. Nonetheless, watching the transformation as Holmes emerged from the garments of some scoundrel fresh from the workhouse had been payment enough, on my part, for having to suffer the indignity of Holmes' cheerful, mocking crow of victory when he had deceived me. The sight of his body shaking off the false persona and expanding into the room around him had always enthralled me, but it was only after the Milverton case that I found myself increasingly anxious to witness the other half of the process: Holmes' submersion of himself into the guise of another.

But this desire was coupled with a queer distaste; each time he indicated that he would be indulging once again in one of his little rôles, I felt uneasy at the thought of him walking the streets of London as someone other than himself. On more than one occasion I attempted to convince him that such a deception was not necessary to solve the case. These attempts were met with varying degrees of hostility and an unvarying result of utter failure, for when Holmes sets his mind to a strategy, he is seldom dissuaded.

The issue came to a crisis not very long after the Milverton affair had concluded, perhaps a year and a half into our acquaintance. Holmes was investigating the complaints of a Brick Lane tavern-owner whose beer had been sabotaged; hardly a matter of life and death, or of national security, yet Holmes threw himself into the case.

"I am going out, Watson," he announced, the evening after he had first spoken with the client. He was striding toward the door, dressed in neat but threadbare clothes, ink-stains on his sleeves. He wore his hair so that it was slighty unkempt and falling forward into his eyes, which peered through a small pair of round spectacles; had I passed him in the street, I might have taken him for a poor schoolmaster ten or twenty years Holmes' senior.

I struggled to speak some non-committal word of goodbye as I watched him complete the outfit with a hat and overcoat, which were clean but showing signs of wear. I could not imagine what possible advantage this disguise would confer upon his investigation. I pursed my lips for a moment, but then could not help but speak.

"When I agreed to share lodgings with you, I didn't realise that I would be sharing with twenty-odd others as well," I said. "Perhaps you should be paying additional rent." It had all the character and none of the feel of a joke.

In my peripheral vision, I saw him still, long fingers just grazing the doorknob. I felt my cheeks burn; I kept my eyes focused on the book in front of me.

"Indeed," Holmes said, slowly.

I knew full well that I had never, in the end, been able to resist the force of Holmes' will when he turned it upon me; in that moment, even without looking directly at him, I could feel that force in the angle of his body and the subtle twitch of his eye, in the shape of him against the doorway. The very manner in which he stood, coupled with his sudden silence, compelled me to raise my eyes to meet his.

"I can see how my coming and going in such attire must cause you difficulty," he said, softly, tauntingly, when I had done so. His gaze held me fast. "Perhaps it would be easier for you if I changed into these little disguises elsewhere. I could always take a modest room in some less savoury section of town where such things would not be remarked upon. I'm sure there are landlords and room-mates who would not find my habits so . . . distasteful."

His statement was designed to provoke me, and I admit that I was glad to have the excuse to be provoked. The image that his words produced angered me beyond reason, beyond even my own understanding.

"Oh, my dear fellow," I heard myself say, "please don't allow me to inconvenience you. I would not dream of intruding upon your habits."

"No? And yet in the past you have shown such a talent for inconveniencing me, Doctor."

"You sanctimonious ass," I snapped, tossing my book to the side-table with rather more force than was necessary. "I don't care how you conduct your business."

"Of course you don't," he agreed, sharply. For a moment longer, I was subjected to the intensity of his gaze, the one he turns on murderers and adulterers, the one that speaks of nothing but cold, mechanical abstraction. Then it softened, just as though he had slipped on one of his masks, and he smiled at me briefly before continuing in a harsh, cutting tone of voice. "I shall be gone for several hours. Though of course I trust that you will keep me apprised if you have any further instruction for me on how to conduct my own affairs? Until then, if I may have your kind permission to leave the room."

I opened my mouth, to say what I do not know, but he had gone – door slammed behind him like a petulant child – long before I could find words to shape to the fury I felt.

*

When Holmes returned, much later, I was asleep in bed. His step on the stairs woke me, as he knew it would, for he knew much of what I had suffered as a soldier. Although he was undoubtedly aware that I was conscious, I lay in bed motionless, feigning sleep, with my face pressed into the pillow. This, too, was a habit long-rehearsed between us, something to which I had grown accustomed. When the door to my room creaked open, no light fell in from outside. We were in darkness. I only moved when I felt his breath upon the back of my neck, followed soon by his soft, sensual lips. He kissed me gently, and I shifted only slightly to acknowledge his presence.

"Come, Watson," he breathed, placing another trembling kiss against me, on the skin below my ear. "Come, turn over."

It was his apology. He smelled of cheap smoke and greasepaint.

I did as he asked. His mouth was on mine in a second, his delicate hands rendered blunt and grasping as they pushed away my nightshirt and sought out my body underneath. I kissed him back voraciously, clutching at his dark hair and shoving furiously up into his seeking palms. I never realised how much I had missed him until I had him in my arms again.

Before long he had two fingers up inside of me, driving me to sudden and unexpected heights of desire. His own ardour was ruthlessly controlled – his clothes were hardly even disarranged – as he watched me avidly, curling his fingers with torturous precision. I gasped against him, and he in response shuttered his eyes briefly closed.

"Yes, Watson, just so," he said, his voice low and careful. He twisted again within me and brought his other hand forward to wrap it around my member and pull in short, hard jerks. Before I could do much beyond gasping and arching into his touch, his hand had been replaced by his wet, sucking mouth. He withdrew his fingers from me and put his palms to my hips, holding me to the bed.

"Holmes, I, please," I panted, though what I was begging for I don't know; he was already giving as much as he ever did, and to hope for more was surely folly. I longed to touch him in return, to see him lose control as he drove me to do; but the strange circumstances of our encounters had always precluded this.

His eyes flashed up to look at me for the briefest of moments, and then he breathed out through his nose, and in again, and took me still deeper into his mouth. I tried to thrust up, but his grip prevented me; I tried to draw it out, but he gave me no respite. I was entirely within his power, and my pleasure was at his mercy.

I gasped as my release shuddered through me, then lay back against the pillows as Holmes climbed the length of my body and took my unresisting mouth. He tasted of me. I reached for him, but he was all wiry strength and quick hands, keeping me at bay. Before too long he had opened his trousers and was rubbing himself against my hip, face buried against my neck. Given no other options, I gripped him hard around the shoulders and held on until he finished.

After, we were still in the darkness together. I relished the sound of his rough breathing, loud amid the still of the house. His lips were still pressed to my neck and his breath was hot.

"I would die for your sake, you know," he said dispassionately, in the same tone of voice he would use to remark on Lestrade's latest hat or to announce that he no longer had any particular affection for the editor of _The Daily Telegraph_. Then, immediately, he had sprung up and out of the bed, as though I were a crime scene whose evidence had been exhausted; I had barely enough time to lift my head from the pillow before the door was clicking softly shut behind him.

*

After that, I found myself needling him over every case, especially those that led to Holmes donning one of his disguises. I would comment at length about the slovenliness of his habits, share eye-rolls with various Inspectors that I knew he would perceive; I even went so far at times as to intentionally misunderstand a crucial piece of evidence, as I knew it would anger him. He treated me to more or less the same mordant sarcasm and dismissive glances that he always had, though I fancied that I perceived a woundedness about his eyes that had not been there before. I am not proud to admit to the cold pleasure I felt in those moments.

On certain nights, at intervals impossible to predict, he would come to my room and convince me with a touch or a kiss to relent, to give myself to him completely, at least for a few minutes in the dark. When we lay together after love, I imagined that our strange disagreement might end, but by the next morning one or the other of us would make some cutting, offhand remark at the expense of the other, and it would seem as though the previous night was nothing more than a dream I'd had.

One such morning, watching Holmes stumble out from his bedroom with his mouse-coloured dressing-gown wrapped untidily about his torso, I found myself struck with a sudden hatred for him, for the way he moved his elegant hands and the way he struck the match for his first pipe of the day, for the lock of hair that fell down over his forehead and the burn-mark on his left slipper where he had spilled acid some weeks before. I had an overwhelming desire to be anywhere else but in his presence.

"Will you be having any further use for me today?" I regretted the sentence as soon as I had spoken it, not least for the angry tone with which it was delivered. But having said it, I could not help but feel some grim satisfaction; it felt good, in that moment, to hurt him.

He blinked at me once, the way he did when assimilating a new and startling piece of evidence, and then his face smoothed into a parody of cold composure.

"I think not," he said, knotting the belt of the dressing gown around his waist. His voice was rough, and I tried not to remember how he had taken me in his mouth in the middle of the night, how he had given me such tender pleasure that I had cried out with it. "I am investigating a new case, and it will require me to put on one of the little costumes of which you are so fond. I am sure that taking you along would quite ruin the disguise."

I nodded, trying not to let my anger show.

"Toast, Holmes?" I offered. I slid the plate across the table and proceeded to turn the page of my newspaper.

"Thank you, my dear fellow, but I am sure that I haven't the energy to spare for digestion."

Taking his pipe with him, Holmes retreated to his bedroom. I saw little of him all that day; he emerged occasionally, for tobacco or to root through his collection of newspaper clippings, but we passed few words between us. I ate lunch alone; I dined alone; and though I heard occasional thumps and mutterings coming from his room, I had begun to assume that he had no intention of leaving our lodgings all day, new case or no. Perversely, I stayed in as well, organizing my papers and trying to write up an account of the Milverton case, for I had the notion that after some time had passed, and with the necessary alteration of names and dates, it could be publishable. The words were slow to come, though, and after some hours of work I had little to show for it but blot-marks and sentences crossed out.

But some hours after dinner, when I had given up writing and taken instead to reading, the door to Holmes' room opened again. He stepped out, dressed in the habit of a clean-cut young sailor, ruddy of cheek and bright of eye and utterly unrecognizable to me. I could not keep my eyes on the pages in front of me; helplessly, I watched him leave.

*

I was able to sit in my armchair, placidly reading my book, listening to the slow tick of the clock, for precisely five minutes. Not even knowing where I would go or how I could begin to track Sherlock Holmes through London when he didn't want to be found, I put on my coat and hat, not bothering to stop long enough to locate my gloves. I regretted this when I emerged into the street, for it was a cold, damp night, with a wind that bit at my bare face and hands. Nonetheless I could not bring myself to go back inside, either to give up the notion entirely or to fetch warmer clothes; suddenly I felt as though I were in hot pursuit, and there was no time to spare. My thoughts were confused, and my body uncoordinated; I only knew that I had to follow him.

Holmes had been dressed as a sailor. Undoubtedly he would be headed to a place where such a costume would be the least conspicuous, for his disguises were inevitably designed to allow him to blend in unnoticed. With this in mind, I hailed a cab and was soon heading toward the various bar-rooms and music halls along the street the sailors called Ratcliff Highway.

*

An hour of searching for Holmes amid drunks in the dark and through the backrooms of public houses soon taught me just how hopeless my enterprise was. The cold light of reason was beginning to dawn over me, finally displacing the passion that had moved me to leave the rooms at Baker Street. It seemed unlikely that I should find Holmes at all, for I didn't even know that he had planned to come here; moreover, it had happened before that I had failed to recognise him while he was in costume, and though I had seen his disguise in advance, I was not confident that I shouldn't miss him among such a throng and such noise. I knew that he could easily avoid me, if he saw me first.

I was standing at a corner, just outside of the pool of light emanating from The Queens Head Tavern. I was wondering where I could find a cab when a shadow moved in the alleyway behind me.

I whirled around quickly, expecting the worst in this part of the city and at this time of night. But it was only a young man, barely old enough, it seemed, to be wearing the Guardsman's jacket and the pillbox hat that sat atop his head of unruly brown curls. Without the uniform, I should have taken him for sixteen, or even younger. He slouched against the wall, so his height was difficult to determine, but he might have been my height or shorter, and was thin in the manner of young men who have not quite finished growing. His bright smile glinted at me from the darkness.

"Evenin', sir," he said. I could see that he was shivering in the cold; like me, he had no gloves, nor was his jacket sufficient against the wind.

"Good evening," I returned. We stood there, not speaking, evaluating each other. My breath caught at his frank young gaze. I had been young like him once, careless, reckless. He cocked his head, letting one lock of hair fall down to cover his eye, gesturing to the alley behind him.

I recognized something in the gesture, the tilt of the head perhaps. Something that called to me. Hesitantly, I stepped toward him. I was careful not to look too closely at his smooth, pale young face. He turned away quickly enough, walking casually away from me, leading me further into the alleyway. He moved as if he had every confidence that I would follow, and, God help me, I did, although I had never done such a thing before in my life. I felt adrift, lost in a strange part of the city without Holmes to guide and anchor me, lost in the confusing mix of passions that had driven me here in the first place.

He found a door in the side of a building and without even turning to confirm my presence, proceeded inside, leaving the door open behind him as an invitation. I cannot now recall the thoughts that must've raced through my mind at the time; such was the effect of the strange, heady feeling that came over me as I ascended the stairs behind this youth whose name I did not know, up into a tiny, dirty room at the end of an unlit hallway.

As the young man lit a lamp and sat down on the bed – which looked relatively clean – a sudden cold terror overcame me and I took a step backwards, intending to bolt back out the door and down into the street, back to my comfortable, familiar rooms and sometime consulting-detective lover.

"Please," the young Guardsman said, in such a quiet, earnest tone of voice that I was compelled to stop. The lamplight flickering over his face both revealed and concealed his features: his bright eyes, his full red lips, and his open, pleading expression.

I stepped back toward him and ran two fingers down the side of his face, studying him intently. He gazed back at me, and the sudden shock of recognition between us was almost overwhelmingly powerful. In that moment I understood him, and I knew what he wanted to give me; I badly wanted to take it.

"Turn around and kneel on the bed," I said. I was calm then, steady; I could see how this game was going to play out, laid out in front of me like one of Holmes' schemes.

He shifted to obey me, a blush staining his pale cheeks. One of his hands came up as if to remove the pillbox hat from his head, but a word from me stilled the motion.

"Leave it on."

I watched with gratitude as his trembling hand withdrew from the chin-strap. He placed his palms on the sheets in front of him, so that he was on his hands and knees facing away from me.

"You're young for a Guardsman," I noted softly, reaching around him to undo his belt and trousers. I pushed his garments down his thighs to his bent knees, baring him to my sight. "Did you join only recently?"

There was a pause; I placed my hand in the small of his back, where his uniform jacket had ridden up.

"Y-yes," he answered, eventually.

"And younger than the mandatory age, too. Sixteen?"

"Fifteen," he gasped, as I shifted my hand gradually lower.

I could believe it. He was not quite young enough to be my son, but very nearly. I bent forward and kissed a low bump on his spine. "What's your name?"

Another pause. Viciously, I pinched the soft, taut skin of his upper thigh.

"Scott," he cried, immediately. "Geoffrey Scott."

"Yes," I said.

The room was hot – I suspected that we were above the kitchens of The Queens Head – so I took a moment to take off my coat and jacket and roll up my shirtsleeves. There was some pleasure in being relatively neat and clothed while my young Guardsman trembled, waiting, in such an obscene posture. Enjoying the sight of his skin, I slowly removed his boots and his rough wool stockings, allowing my hands to linger on his feet and ankles. My own desire was becoming increasingly insistent, but I remained slow and methodical even as my heart pounded hard in my chest. The entire situation seemed impossible, like something that might happen in a dream, but his body beneath my hands was solid and real.

"Sir," Geoffrey Scott said, "please." I could see that his desperation matched my own. Taking pity on him, I knelt up behind him on the bed and pressed my body against his, reaching around his slim waist to stroke him gently. Fumbling with my other hand, I gracelessly unfastened my trousers. He pushed shamelessly forward into my hand, all youthful selfishness. For the moment, I indulged him.

"Spread your knees apart," I instructed him, in the same tone I would use with a patient. He struggled to obey, but his legs were tangled in his half-discarded garments, and he fell forward onto the bed, moaning.

Hushing him, I drew off the twisted trousers and drawers, leaving him naked from the waist down. He did not look back at me, but simply reassumed his previous position, allowing his head to hang down between his shoulders. His hat had gone slightly askew, and there was a trickle of sweat dampening the soft brown curls that fell over the nape of his smooth, pale neck.

Getting him braced again with his knees spread wide, I wet my fingers and stroked them into him for the first time. His breathing came faster; his muscles were tight around my fingers.

"Have you done this before?" I did not bother to conceal my own rough breathing, nor the gasp that he shocked out of me when he writhed backwards to take more of me inside him.

For a long moment, he didn't answer. I began to feel anger surging up inside me at his deception, at his attempt to conceal this information from me. I warmed my hand against his skin, preparing myself for a slap.

"No," he gritted out finally, with the hint of an accent that did not belong on a Guardsman.

I spat on my hand, as I had not done since my days in the army, and readied myself. When I began to push into him, he cried out a little even as he pushed back into the sensation. Though he was tall, and had a certain wiry strength, he seemed small and slight beneath me, and impossibly delicate.

"Slowly," I said, warningly. I put a hand to the back of his neck and eased myself forward, following my own directive and taking my time, allowing him several long breaths, in and out, to adjust to the intrusion.

It seemed to take hours, that slow, torturous push to sheathe myself in his body. He was hot inside and clenching around me sporadically; I moved my hand to caress his back through the rough wool of his jacket, encouraging him to relax.

"Please – I – " he managed, fisting his hands in the sheets.

"Shhhh," I said. I reached around him to take him in my hand again as I pushed forward the last inch to fill him completely.

We held still then, our bodies pressed together perfectly, each of us wrapped around the other.

"You're not a Guardsman," I said, into the silence that we had made between us. I began to move within him.

He surged forward wildly into my hand. "No," he moaned.

"Perhaps," I said, resting my forehead between his shoulderblades and attempting to catch my breath, "perhaps you are a schoolboy just sent down from Eton. Disguising yourself as a Guard to come here."

I had tightened my grip, my hands spanning his slim hips, and begun thrusting into him steadily, so that for a moment my only answer was another low groan. He was moving quickly now, crying out wantonly, free with his voice and his body. I was overwhelmed by the feel of his soft, yielding skin beneath my rough palms.

"Yes," he said, shaping the word on a hard exhalation.

"Or a boy – learning a – trade," I gasped, "a young tailor, who needs – money –"

"Anything," Geoffrey Scott said; then he said it again, "anything, anything – "

We descended, then, into rough animal sounds; I fell forward onto his back, taking him roughly as he cried out his completion. A moment later, he collapsed into the bed beneath him, his arms giving out. I followed him down, my body spasming out of my control as I spent myself within him.

I took a long time in coming back to myself, after. He lay still and quiet beneath me, his breathing in time with my own. Eventually, I pulled away from him, wincing at the mess on my clothing as I redid the buttons on my trousers. Geoffrey Scott stayed face-down on the bed while I collected myself. I felt a surprising surge of gratitude for this, and affection for him. I picked up his garments and lay them on the bed beside him in order to have an excuse to stop and touch my fingertips once more, sweetly, to his hair and his neck.

My hands were shaking as I buttoned up my overcoat.

"Two shillings," he said from the bed, voice muffled. I fumbled the coins out of my pocket and set them on a small, rickety table near the door.

*

When I got back to Baker Street, I washed as best I could and changed into my nightshirt. The evening's events seemed already distant to me, as though they had happened to someone else, and although I was still trembling from the exertion and felt a dull, throbbing pain from the old wound in my leg, I could almost imagine that I had spent the night here, reading quietly, waiting for Holmes to return.

Holmes did not return until hours later, long after I had fallen into fitful, shallow sleep. I was woken easily by his step on the stairs that led up to my room, and I felt an immediate sense of dread. If he woke me, I would hardly wish to deny him – such opportunities arose all too infrequently – but I was exhausted, and felt raw and vulnerable as I hadn't back in the room above the Queen's Head. Whatever control I had found there was now lost to me; to let Holmes see me in this state seemed dangerous.

He opened my door, and stood there silently for a long time before crossing to the bed. Breaking our usual routine, I opened my eyes to take in the shape of him in the darkness. Bending swiftly, he fit his mouth to mine. It was an act that I had not thought to perform with Geoffrey Scott, and I was grateful now for that omission. Holmes tasted of something waxy, like lip-rouge, and indeed when he pulled away from me I could see a faint trace of unnatural redness on his mouth.

Holmes stood up again stiffly, his fingers twitching toward me in an aborted movement; to do what, I do not know. I leaned up on my elbows and waited for him to speak.

"I shall leave you in peace, Watson," he said at last. I watched him turn to go – all lean limbs and wiry strength, his eyes too old for his 29 years – and in that moment I understood for the first time why he had come to my bed in the first place, and why, if I did not intervene, he would refuse to come ever again. He thought us done, our account settled; but I knew as if it were my own the pain that it had cost him to sever this tie with me. I pressed my fingers to my lips, which now tasted too of lip-rouge, and I lay awake for a long time, wondering what to do.

*

The next morning, I ate breakfast quickly and made excuses to be away from the house. Although I despised myself when my hasty departure – transparently, an attempt to get away from Holmes – caused the slight frown on his lips and the wrinkle between his eyes that I knew signalled his disappointment, I needed time and space to think. I found myself walking aimlessly through the city, and try as I might to shake off thoughts of Holmes, I was reminded of him constantly, by little items in shop windows and the clopping sound of horses' hooves on the cobblestone beside me, by the smell of soot in the air and the slow drizzle of rain that began about midday.

When I returned for dinner, there was a near-impenetrable cloud of smoke filling the sitting room; Holmes sat where he had been sitting when I left, in the chair near the window, with his pipe and Persian slipper near to hand. Given the quantity of smoke, I had no doubt that he would soon turn to his less palatable addictions if allowed to continue uninterrupted.

"Holmes," I said, interrupting. He turned briefly to acknowledge my presence, then turned back to face the window.

"There is an appalling lack of diversion in the world around me, Watson," he said to the drapes. "I find it all most tedious and uninteresting. Do you know how long I have been sitting at this window, waiting for someone to pass by whose origins and desires are not entirely transparent, or entirely pedestrian?"

"All day, I assume."

"All day, and not a single mystery among them."

I took the seat next to his. "I got you this while I was out today," I said. In my mind, I'd rehearsed a subtle, casual speech about having stumbled across something he might find useful, but abandoned it now that I had come under his scrutiny. Doubtless he would see the splashes of mud on my trousers from outside the three shops I'd been in looking for such items, and anyway there had already been lies enough between us that even this small untruth was suddenly abhorrent to me.

He took the box from me and opened it, one elegant eyebrow twitching upwards. When he saw what was inside, a genuine smile threatened the corners of his mouth.

"Do you like it?" I asked. "I did not think you had this particular style, and it is a common one."

"Watson," he said slowly, lifting it out of the wrapping paper, "this is the third least convincing false moustache I have ever seen."

I smiled with relief. "Your performance will just have to make up for it, then," I said.

"Indeed." He tugged at the little hairs, attempting to groom it into a more acceptable configuration.

Not long after, Mrs. Hudson came in with dinner; Holmes had ordered roast pigeon, which he knew that I loathed, but as it was accompanied by his solicitousness and good humour, I tolerated the food. Had I been in his place, I might have done something similarly petty.

"Are there no new cases on the horizon?" I asked, after we had been silent for some time. Despite a feeling that we had begun to repair ourselves, the conversation did not flow easily.

"Did I not say earlier that there was no mystery left to me in London?" He had tossed down his fork after a few desultory bites of meat, and was now eyeing the sweetbreads and potatoes as if they bore him some ill will.

"You always say so, and yet there is always another client."

He made a disgruntled noise, as if annoyed to have his habits laid bare, but he himself had taught me how to observe him, and ought to have realised the consequences. I was not so astute as he at detection or deduction, but I was finally learning.

After dinner I took myself up to my room, again craving time alone, but once there I did little. When I sat on the bed, memories of the night before flooded into my mind. I was simultaneously nauseated and excited, for I knew what I was going to do; I had only to wait, and find my courage to act.

It had been dark for hours when I finally descended the stairs. Holmes had obviously retired for the night, and there was no light on under his door to indicate that he was up reading or doing chemical experiments on the small table he kept in his room. Hoping that he had heard my footsteps, I opened his door without knocking.

He did not pretend to sleep; instead he sat up immediately and opened his eyes. I wondered if I had awakened him out of some nightmare. It occurred to me that I had never before seen Holmes asleep, nor just roused from sleep; the effect that the sight had upon me was remarkable.

"Watson," he breathed, after a moment, and I understood that I had woken him, after all. He had not expected me to come to him, for indeed I had never before done so. The rare pleasure of having surprised him, even in a small way, lent me the courage I needed. I crossed the room and sat on the edge of his bed, saying nothing; then I bent down to meet him as he surged upwards, bringing our mouths together in a slow, hard kiss. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself, and at my touch he made a small involuntary noise against my lips that spurred my memory and imagination.

"Come," I said, between kisses, as our mouths met and parted, met and parted; "Holmes, please – " but I do not know what I was asking of him. He had all along been giving me everything.

He broke away and buried his face in my neck, breathing hard. Even in the darkness, the words did not come easily from him. "I thought – if this is, duty, I know that in the past I've – "

I tried to hush him, but he continued to speak, using the same clipped, haughty tone he normally reserved for especially dense Yard Inspectors.

"But I no longer have any particular desire for, for – " I kissed his mouth again, as sweetly as I could, to keep the word _pity_ from passing his lips.

He gave in to me then, and I allowed myself to show him my desire, to take what I never had before: I uncovered him, kissing his skin and letting my hands encompass his body, touching his thighs, his chest, his waist. He did not lay still, but neither did he prevent me from having my fill of him, the feel of him against me. I uncovered myself too, and felt the glorious luxury of his skin against me. For the first time, I watched Sherlock Holmes arch and lean upwards into my touch; I saw him as lost in his own passion as I was in mine; I felt his strength pulling me down to him, closer to him, as we learned each other, finally, in the dark.

Our coupling was quick and frantic; we were both too overwhelmed, I think, by the passion of the moment to draw things out. Afterwards, I lay atop him, my arms entwined about him, for what felt like a long time.

Eventually, he drew his hand from my shoulder down my bare arm, then back up again in a slow caress.

"As charming as I find your presence, Watson, I think you'll find our association a more satisfying one in the long term if you allow me to breathe."

Smiling, I rolled away, and was surprised when he turned on his side to face me. Sensing a rare opportunity, I placed a hand on the pale skin of his belly, sliding it around his waist. He did not pull away, but rather closed his eyes and sighed. I marvelled at the open expression of pleasure that flitted briefly across his features.

"You can have my presence, and my attention, at any time," I said, quietly. "I find myself entirely in your hands."

He opened his eyes, his gaze suddenly encompassing me in that fast, consuming manner that I still found discomfiting. When he found whatever it was that he was looking for, he relaxed further into my touch.

"I was surprised to find it not unlike the cocaine," he said, dispassionately, as if he were speaking of someone else. "When otherwise occupied, I could resist, but eventually the – " he touched a single finger to my temple and drew it slowly down, " – temptation was overwhelming."

"Well, I acknowledge that there are German studies, albeit of dubious scientific merit, linking sodomy to neurasthenia, but I hardly think that I could be as damaging to your system as that infernal drug." When I was halfway through this sentence, he smiled, delighted, and kissed my neck.

"You are a most acceptable substitute," he said. His breath against my skin was hot.

For a long time, we didn't speak, and I was almost asleep, my thoughts just beginning to shade into dreams, when his voice startled me awake again.

"Do not let me forget, Watson," he said, his words drifting towards me slowly; he too sounded half-asleep. "I owe you two shillings."

Lying there with my hand still cradled around his bare waist, I felt a greater pleasure and contentment than I had ever known before. "Keep them," I said, eventually. "Let Mr. Scott buy himself a more well-fitted uniform."

"You may not find Mr. Scott so attractive as you once did," Holmes answered, his words punctuated by a yawn. "For I believe that he has grown a most unconvincing moustache."

When I finally fell to sleep a moment later, it was with a smile still upon my lips.

*

I woke in the morning to Holmes shaking my shoulder roughly and hissing in my ear, which was such an altogether familiar experience that I was almost surprised to open my eyes and find myself in his bed.

"Up, Watson, now," he was saying. As if to confirm the urgency in his voice, a knock came on the door only a moment later.

"Mr. Holmes?" Mrs. Hudson called. "There's a gentleman to see you."

I was suddenly awake and alert, thrust fully into a sense of complete panic.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, please wait one moment," Holmes called back, his eyes locked on mine. There was a twinkling amusement in his expression that I found extremely annoying under the circumstances.

"I will go out immediately," he said, returning to a whisper, and I saw that he was already decently attired in his dressing-gown. "Dress as quickly as you can, and I will come and get you in a moment. You may use anything you find," he added, gesturing at the rather untidy chest of drawers and wardrobe that lined the far wall of the room.

He slipped out the door, closing it neatly behind him. Soon I heard him speaking in low tones to Mrs. Hudson, asking her to bring in the client; not long after that, Holmes could be heard to converse with someone else, presumably the gentleman in question.

Not wanting to brave the wilds of Holmes' wardrobe at such an early hour, I pulled on the clothes that I had been wearing the night before, washed my hands in the basin that Holmes kept by the bed – though the water was, as I discovered to my vague disgust, cold and already used – and did my best to smooth my hair and moustache into something relatively presentable. The wrinkles in my jacket and trousers were unavoidable, but with any luck our visitor would not have Holmes' powers of perception, and they would go unnoticed.

Holmes timed it perfectly, for I had just finished dressing when I heard his voice again distinctly.

"Let me just check to see if my colleague, Dr. Watson, is awake yet; I'm sure his opinion could be invaluable in this matter." I heard his voice clearly through the door, as he obviously had intended. His knock came a moment later; I waited what seemed to be a decent interval before opening it.

"Ah, Watson, I see that you're awake," Holmes said cheerfully. "Do come and listen to Mr. Green's story; I promise that you will find it most interesting."

I obligingly exited his bedroom as if it were my own, and listened to Mr. Green's story, which did indeed, as Holmes would say, present some points of interest. When he had gone, I handed Holmes the matches so that he could light his pipe.

"Thank you," he said, absently.

"So, under what guise do you think you will solve this case?" I asked. "A costermonger, or a watchmaker perhaps? A circus acrobat?"

"Oh, a dairy-maid, undoubtedly," he returned easily.

There in the sitting room with the morning sun streaming in the windows, I held his wrist to keep his pipe from his lips, pressed my body against his, and took his mouth, kissing him fully, taking my time. Then, having made my point, I pulled back a few inches to take in the expression on his face. To my great pleasure and surprise, he flashed me a reckless, helpless grin before leaning back in and kissing me again, hard and brief. Then he broke away abruptly and paced to the other side of the room, turning away from me and gazing thoughtfully out the window.

"No, I think I shall require your assistance in this matter, Watson, and since you would make a singularly unattractive dairy-maid – " he held up a hand to forestall my protest, " – we shall just have to go in as ourselves."

*

 _Epilogue_

"That is entirely too much spirit gum, Watson. You are going to smell like a lumberjack." He wrested the bottle out of my hands and took over the business, his fingers precise and efficient on the skin of my temple.

"I am beginning to think that I had better dress as a lumberjack if I want this amount of facial hair to go unnoticed. Are you entirely sure about this beard, Holmes?" I tugged doubtfully at the chin-wig that I had already applied.

"Don't pull at it, you'll ruin everything," he said severely. I could see, in the mirror, the flash of his smile; it was so quick that it would have been easy to miss had I not been watching for it. I tilted my head to one side to allow him better access; after a moment, he finished applying the mutton-chops and turned me by the shoulders to stare at my face.

"Well?"

He arched an eyebrow at me. "It will have to suffice," he said. "Open your eyes as wide as you can."

I did so, and tried not to flinch away when he attacked the sensitive skin around my eyes with a soft black pencil. After a few more careful ministrations with various camel-hair brushes and paints, he turned me back again to face the mirror.

In my place stood a swarthy seaman, perhaps sixty years old, with a jagged scar running through his eyebrow. I could scarcely believe the transformation. I glanced at Holmes, who had already gotten himself up before calling me into his room for my turn. I had studiously avoided looking at him as much as I could up till now, for the sight of him in his Guardsman's uniform, with his reddened cheeks and lips and the soft curls falling over his forehead, awoke memories in me that were best repressed if we were going to catch the 11:30 train. His eyes sparkled with a mischief that only enhanced his youthful appearance.

"It is very well done indeed," I said. He preened under the compliment. I could not resist the sight of such a Holmesian mannerism fit incongruously to the face of my young Guardsman, and reaching out, I ran two fingers slowly down the side of his face. He stilled for me, allowing me to look my fill. Then, carefully, so as not to disarrange my rather complex beard or the makeup that had taken ten years from his face, I leaned forward and pressed my lips lightly to his in what I intended to be a brief, chaste kiss. His mouth opened hotly beneath mine, though, and I am afraid that I did disarrange him somewhat before letting him go.

Holmes pulled back, looking even redder in the cheek than the rouge had allowed, and gripped my hands in his, holding them away from his body. "I am shocked, Watson, that you would perform such a lewd and licentious act upon an innocent young Guardsman, who surely doesn't know any better."

Glancing back at myself in the mirror, I shrugged. "Perhaps, as an old sailor, I haven't the strictest moral compass."

He rolled his eyes, sighing deeply. "Just do me the kindness of keeping quiet while we're at the manor-house," he said. "A remark from you about the strictness of your moral compass and I believe your identity will be in doubt."

"I won't say a word," I promised, laughing. With a short nod, Holmes picked up the case containing Lady Fawthington-Grant's heirloom pearls, tipped his hat to a rakish angle, and took my arm in his.

"We will be dining out, Mrs. Hudson," he said, as we passed the lady in the hall.

"Where?" she asked, incredulously.

I smiled at her, showing off the teeth that I had blacked out. "Manchester," I replied.

Holmes barked a laugh, his arm wrapped tightly around my own, and escorted me down the stairs; London lay before us.

*  


**Author's Note:**

> Note: contains sex between someone who's 30 and someone who says they're 15, but is in fact of age. The story definitely eroticizes the ideas of age difference, underage sex, underage bodies, and may/december power dynamics. Also there's some D/s and painplay.


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